Notes From Nashville: Nov. 20, 2023

tour report / sharing an o'kanes song

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

We will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday twice in the coming week, which is fine by us. Bring on the gravy!

Tour Report

Our recent outing to Ohio and West Virginia went SO WELL. I gotta say: there was a time in the post-lockdown days when I really wasn’t sure whether KK was going to warm back up to touring and live performance. But now we both feel like it’s more joyful and enjoyable than ever! 

Here’s How It Went

We began our tour by cruising up to Yellow Springs, Ohio. My buddy Chris Westhoff has recently taken over as director of The Foundry Theater at Antioch, and obviously he’s doing a fantastic job. (I mean: he hired us! What more do you need to know?) We had wonderful chats with local press and radio there ahead of time, and ended up with a surprisingly large and cheery crowd on a Wednesday night—including some dear old friends of mine I hadn’t seen in ages. High hopes to make that a regular visit from now on! (And, no, we didn’t see Dave Chappelle.)

Sunset in Yellow Springs

The next day we had a very short jaunt to Columbus, so we wandered the back roads and enjoyed the scenic Ohio bucolic-ness. It’s always preferable to get off the interstate when time allows, and the weather was spectacular. As a representative of the midwest (I grew up in northern Indiana), I did my best to answer KK’s many questions about corn, farms, and the Amish.

Amusing signage spotted on our drive; soup at Katzinger's; beautiful sidewalk in German Village

Our Columbus show was at Natalie’s, a venerable institution that has recently relocated to a new building and expanded in size. We were pretty attached to the vibes at the old Natalie’s, so it was a real delight to find that the new room is even better than the old one—and they still have the highest quality staff and audience! We love playing there in part because our show promoter, Alec Wightman, is also our host, and we get to stay with him and his wife Kathy, catch up on life, and wander the streets of Columbus’s cool German Village neighborhood.

The next day we dawdled our way through another rural drive to Peninsula, which is the home of our other frequented-and-beloved Ohio joint: The G.A.R. Hall. We were the first act to play there since their glorious new (ADA compliant) addition was opened! Peninsula Foundation director Karen Walters has so much cool stuff cooking all the time, and her work on getting that hall spiffed up is just part of it. She makes us feel entirely at home in Peninsula, and fosters a warm community of music appreciators and performers. What a gift.

Then it was south to Charleston, West Virginia, for the last date on our little tour. The “Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance”—aka “FOOTMAD”—were kind enough to invite us to be a part of their concert series at the Culture Center Theater (a space we’ve visited in the past for Mountain Stage). We were greeted there by friendly volunteers, sweet sound and lighting techs, and a receptive audience who cleaned us out of all the remaining merchandise we had! What more could you ask for?

Here are some photos from that night taken by Amos Perrine:

Speaking of merchandise… 

For this tour, we experimented with making the merch table entirely self-serve and pay-what-you-want. People could pay us via PayPal or Venmo or Stripe, and there was also a cash box. It went great! Not only did it free us up to visit with folks, it also made the whole merch table experience kinda fun and novel. The money part went like we suspected it might—generous folks mostly made up for the more impecunious ones—and it all worked out fine. And it definitely put CDs into circulation that wouldn’t be out there otherwise. So you can expect the same setup at our upcoming shows, we’re into it!

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And Here’s Another Experiment

Remember how we mentioned the idea of releasing an album of old live and demo recordings of The O’Kanes? That plan has changed. We’d rather begin by sharing some tidbits with you folks and see what happens. Some of this stuff may find its way into the wider world, or it might just remain a little treat we share with our newsletter subscribers.

So here’s the first bit: “This Ain’t Love”

It’s live from the second-to-last show the O’Kanes ever played, on Sep. 1, 1990, at the Strawberry Music Festival in Grass Valley, CA. Kieran is playing mandolin, Jamie O’Hara is playing rhythm guitar, Richard Kane is on lead guitar, Roy Huskey Jr. is on bass.

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UPCOMING SHOWS:

• Jan. 26: Saint Louis, MO • The Focal Point

• Jan. 27: Champaign, IL • Techline Studio

• Jan. 28: Berwyn, IL • FitzGerald’s

• Mar. 28: Savannah, GA • Savannah Music Festival

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In Closing

If you have a friend you think would enjoy this note, please forward it on. As Kieran always says (regardless of the time of year): “Christmas is just around the corner!”—so we hope you’ll remember our online store when you’re doing your holiday shopping.

Your reading/listening/caring means the world to us.

Till soon —

xo rg & kk

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